Fists and kisses and the inbetween
by indiaga
Summary: Some kissed them, and some lay with them and some held their hand and some did nothing. Drabbly one-shots surrounding any relationships the major characters past and present may have had. Not with each other, just in general. Update: Abby.
1. Gibbs

_**SPOILERS FOR S7 E2 IN AUTHORS NOTE**_

**Just a new thing I'm doing. Drabbly one-shots about random relationships (some romantic, some platonic) that have shaped the team. I'm too tired to do a hyper, rambly authors note, so all I'm gona say is:**

**1. I love Tony singing in the mens room. You can't even call it singing. Yodelling, maybe. Or maybe it's just noise.**

**2. Ziva kissing Tony was perhaps the best thing I've seen all year.**

**3. I hate the Verification Principle and the Vienna Circle and I wish fools like Ayers had thought twice before they started pontificating on about logical positivism and all that crap. As you can probably tell, I have an essay to do.**

**4. On with the show.  
**

Somewhere between Shannon and Jenny, Gibbs did not fall in love.

She was quiet, with solemn hazel eyes and reddish brown hair. Not the laughing ginger freckles of his dead wife, nor the provocative crimson of his future lover. She was soft and gentle, and infinitely patient, and it broke his heart a little to see her so resigned to the limits of his affections. So understanding when he dripped salty tears onto her bare skin as he made love to her. The first time, he tried to meet her eyes. The second, he buried his face in her neck and did not try to hide the sobs that racked his tired, proud body. She stroked his back in slow circles and steadied her breathing.

Two weeping lovers, together in a bed. They drown in it.

* * *

The mornings are sweet. Easier, as though the wires on which they are suspended slacken a little, melt and dip in the young sunlight. He might roll over and kiss her cheek, and she will pretend that this stirs her, and that she has not been lying awake through the night thinking about what he does not feel for her.

Oh, he probably loves her. But he does not love her enough, and so she lies awake.

* * *

Sometimes they would go out together, and to the entire world they would appear freshly loving. He might even relent enough to hold her hand, but he could always feel the difference in her fingers. They were colder, thinner. He could feel her bones through her skin and it reminded him of skeletons, of dead beauties in boxes with screams on their lips. And suddenly his grip would slacken, and she would understand, and would not cling, and this is how he bears her.

* * *

After a while, he leaves her, and though his eyes are tired, and his lips say _I'm sorry, _his heart is a thousand miles away, and has never been with her.

* * *

He is not with her when the little blue lines appear and she sits, alone, on a toilet seat, and cries like a child until her limbs are stiff and her eyes won't open.

He is not with her when the doctor explains the risks and asks whether she will be alone. He is not with her as she lies back on the sterile white bed and the desperate tears spill from tightly squeezed eyes. He does not hold her hand.

He is not with her when she does not fall in love again.

She has so much time left, and she does not know what to do with it.


	2. McGee

**McGee now. Different style and tone for this one, not sure I like it but I was fiddling with it for ages and then decided to give up and post.**

**Disclaimer: Actually, the majority of this does belong to me. Apart from McGee and Sarah. Wow. This feels odd. **

**And: I always love reviews. And please don't flame. Enjoy :)**

In the summer between high school and college, Timothy McGee does as he always has done, and is alone in this.

As always, his parents, his aunt and his uncle make the trek down to the beach house and bring along their kids. Tim Sarah Mike Jeanie. Only it was never Tim Sarah Mike Jeanie. It was Mike Jeanie Sarah Tim. Only this year it wasn't even Mike Jeanie Sarah Tim.

Mike Tod Vincent Jeanie Carlie Sarah Tim. And Bea.

* * *

He had to share a room with Mike every year, which was bad enough, but this year his brattish cousin had brought along two friends with pretty hair and white grins and Tim wanted to cry. They laughed at his computer and they laughed when he told them he was going to MIT. They laughed a lot, he realised after a while, and it was only ever nice laughter in front of the grownups.

Blonde, sunny Jeanie with the long brown legs and the love of horses brought two friends along too. Carlie, a snide skinny little thing who paraded about in her underwear and acted all coy when she caught the dads looking. And Bea.

Sarah and Tim didn't bring any friends. Tim brought his computer, and Sarah brought a hickey from her first boyfriend, and Tim didn't realise what a conversation opener this hickey was.

They never shut up about it.

He wanted to tell them all that Sarah and her silly little classmates had all spent a recess sucking on each other's necks and laughing in incredulity at their own audacity. There was no boy, and there was no bite of love.

There was Bea.

* * *

He fiddled with pixels and bytes all day, and if he leant a little to his right and forward, he could see out of the window to where the others were playing volleyball and soccer and running around half naked. He liked the cool dampness of his room. The hums and clicks of his machinery.

And then there was Bea.

Her name was Iris, but she was introduced as '_Timmy this is Iris but everybody calls her Bea oh Sarah it's so great to _see_ you again how _are _you oh my god what is _that _on your neck oh my god spill!' _and he hadn't really paid her much attention. Keep your eyes on your feet and nod politely, and extricate yourself from the time of your life as soon as you can.

But she had spoken to him – _'You're the one that's going to MIT?' _ and he had to look up and meet her gaze then, and it was as he expected.

Iris-but-everybody-calls-her-Bea was all straight, hard angles, long arms and legs dangling about like she didn't know what to do with them. She had thick glasses on and breathed through her mouth, and pulled at her sleeves constantly. She was not wearing a bikini, and she did not have brown legs, and so he smiled, and said _'Yeah'_ and she looked impressed enough to make him a little proud.

They fell into a pattern, Tim and Bea, and he was always too polite to shake her off, even when he just wanted five minutes to himself (last year Mike had shown him some porn and laughed at his blushing reaction).

She called him McGee, in a teasing, distant tone that intimated something secret and shared, and his mother noticed at dinner and doubled her efforts in maintaining the _Timmy_ that she had found so damn adorable in childhood. He was still chubby and wide-eyed, you see. Our McGee. And whilst to everyone else he was _Tim, Timbo, Timothy_, to his mother he was _Timmy_, and it stung.

* * *

MikeTodVincent moved as one. Mike flirted with Carlie, Tod with Jeanie and Vincent with Sarah. Timothy McGee watched the juvenile frolicking and Bea watched Tim and he pretended he couldn't feel it. She suggested they go for a walk once, and he'd made a reluctant noise in the back of his throat and suddenly she saw it all for what it was. There was a terrible silence, a moment of sharp and slicing clarity, and suddenly he could feel the prickling in _her _eyes and _her _nose and felt the tremors in _her_ voice as she excused herself. At dinner she would not meet his blinking gaze. And then all hell broke loose. Mike opened his mouth.

'_So Timbo, you and Bea look like you're getting pretty cosy.'_

It was enough to make the moms at the table smile tight, artificial, endlessly patronising little smiles at each other and exclaim in wildly happy tones that they found it just _so_ sweet. Carlie and Jeanie exchanged smirking glances and then voiced their insincere approval. Tod and Vincent scoffed into their suppers. Sarah gazed directly across at her brother with a worried frown, unconsciously stroking the bruise on her neck. _Little girls sucking little hearts and little minds thinking little._ The two men – balding, pudgy, sunburnt, with hairy arms and all-American smiles – guffawed at each other like idiots.

Bea stared down at her plate with a desperate intensity he felt mirrored in his own bones.

'_Could say the same about you and Carlie.'_

Of all the comebacks in the world, it wasn't the greatest, but he hoped it would deflect some attention. But no, apparently not, because Mike was tall and muscled, and Carlie bronze and bouncy, and beautiful people never know shame, and Timothy McGee is not beautiful.

'_I think it's nice, Timmy.'_

Timmy. Well, that did it.

He snapped, and the shock in his mothers powdered, spidered eyes – _stop calling me fucking Timmy!_ - was beautiful.

* * *

That night, he heard the French windows open and saw her disappear. She left two notes, one for them and one for him.

The one for them contained a lie, an excuse and an apology. _I'm so sorry, grandmother taken sick, caught the train home, thank you for having me._

The one for him contained humiliation, gratitude and a lasting goodbye.

* * *

Two years later, after trying on the name Bea McGee and realising just how ridiculous it sounded, she hung herself in her lonely dorm room, and no one thought to tell him.

**Depressingo, I realise that. But, still...reviews?**


	3. Tony

**Bonj(our). How is everyone? Enjoying developing an stress-ulcer due to the unresolved Tiva-tension of Reunion? I know I am. Cannot WAIT for Wednesday morning (I never used to enjoy 6am alarms, but somehow the knowledge of new episodes gets me out of bed quicker than you can say Tiva).**

**New chapter. Tony's turn. I really like this one...it's longer, for one thing, and...I don't know. I just really like it.**

**I'm really sorry that atm I don't have the time to respond personally to each review I get. I would LOVE to be able to, but a feminist reading of Duffy's poem 'Pgymalion's Bride' awaits, and I can't TELL you how excited I am about that...so just a massive thank you for everyone that took the time to read and review, your comments mean such a lot to me and really encourage me to continue :) So ta.**

**Disclaimer: I own Margot, and nothing else.**

**And: enjoy! And I really do appreciate reviews, they make me smile and update quicker...**

_Tony_

He remembers how he met her. It was raining, and Gibbs had sent him out for coffee. _And none of that usual muck you bring back, DiNozzo. That's not coffee._ Pissing it down, and racing down the street with daggers of rain bouncing back up at him, he bemoaned his fate. He bemoaned his expensive leather shoes, and expensive Italian suit. And then he bemoaned his luck when he caught sight of the steamy pandemonium that was Starbucks.

And then he caught sight of _her_. Sitting in the window of a tiny French café with a big book and a little frown. And the rain was pouring down.

* * *

Her name was Margot, and she knew the owners, and they did excellent coffee. The tome in her hands was _War and Peace_, and when he asked her if she was enjoying it she wrinkled her nose and made a noise. "Meh." And it made him laugh, and she invited him to sit down and wait out the storm.

"Have you ever read it?"

"Uh, no ... no, I, uh, haven't." And suddenly he felt awkward and clumsy and hopelessly foolish. No, he hadn't read it, he didn't know what it was about, he couldn't discuss it. And the fact that he could tell when somebody was lying, knew how to get the truth, could aim with deadly precision...none of that mattered.

But the skinny, clever girl who could not possibly be interested in Tony recrossed her legs and smirked at him. "Consider yourself lucky. I have to get this done by Monday, and I have a million other things to do as well." A mournful sigh. A fingertip chased a hot, sweet drop of coffee down the side of her mug. A tongue darted from between pink lips and caught it, victorious.

He swallowed. The storm ended. And suddenly he realised that he'd been gone almost fifteen minutes and he usually got yelled at for five.

There was a start, a jump, a wince, comical in its sincerity. A garbled apology, a goodbye, a grab of Styrofoam, the bell of a shutting door.

Margot smiled, and wrote something down on a slip of paper.

The door jingled again, and he was back, agitated, torn between his ration and his passion. Open lips. "How quickly can you say your number?" And she smiled, and arched her eyebrows, and held out the little scrap of paper. A row of little digits, turquoise ink. He fell a little bit in love with her that day.

That is how he met her.

* * *

Five days later and he wakes in a bed in a slumbering dawn. She is sweet and hot and crumpled, and she nestles closer. She _is_ skinny, too skinny, perhaps, and her skin is pale and her hair a mess of honey curls, but he thinks she is beautiful. She finished _War and Peace_ and they made triumphant, giggling love. She whispered the plot between kisses and flickers of tongue and teeth and fingertips. She gave up when his lips got to her hip.

He makes eggs for breakfast, and she eats them all up sitting naked on his kitchen counter. She has a class to go to, but she'll be back soon. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. _Maybe never, although that isn't likely_, she tells him as she grabs her bag.

He's never met anyone quite like her.

* * *

They stay this way for a while, kissing and touching and telling and loving. She is fascinated by his job, suitably impressed by his frightening recounts of Gibbs, widens her eyes melodramatically as he goes into the details of the latest shoot out. She is repulsed by his gun, but cannot resist peeking at it when she thinks he isn't looking. And in return, after they've tired themselves out by rolling around and moaning, they lie on the floor or the sofa, heaped together on the bed, draped across toilet seats and in the bath, and she tells him beautiful things. Poetry and philosophy and history. Literature and astronomy and art, and music. She knows so much, and as he lies there underneath her, on top of her, side by side, holding her, he realises that all he can offer is a good shot.

* * *

She senses his decision as soon as he makes it, and something within her closes. Her skin is still smooth and soft and oddly hot, her hair still golden and curly, her eyes still wide, her lips still smirking, but there is something gone in her now, something that is not his and she is not willing to share. The final kiss is unremarkable, but they both know what it signifies, and she is unusually tender. As she pulls away, he wants to reach out, grab her, say something, do anything, to make her stay. He knows, somewhere, it is a mistake to let her leave, but another, easier part of him stills his hand, silences his tongue.

That night there is another girl in his bed, coarser, rougher. She does not speak of philosophy and art, and in the morning when he makes her eggs, she frowns and mutters something about a diet.

* * *

Quite by chance, many years later, he sees her again near the Memorial. He's walking alone, because Paula has died, and he cannot face Jeanne so soon. She's sitting on a bench with a book in her hand and a bright blue dress. It's almost evening, and the cold is setting in. As soon as she feels the wood of the bench creak as he joins her, she know. That quizzical, knowing smile, all these years later and still the same. Her hair is longer, her eyes older and more lovely. She's turned into quite the little beauty.

He doesn't know what to say to her, and suddenly he knows exactly.

"What are you reading?"

A little laugh, because she hasn't forgotten either. "_One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest_" she says, and he laughs louder this time, because he _has_ read it. Her eyes are wary and guarded. "What's happened, Tony?"

He tells her about Paula, and about Jeanne, and she asks how Gibbs is. He is touched that she remembered. The sun sets before he realises that he still exists in the world, that an ex lover has been blown to pieces and his current lover is alone and wondering. There might be a tear, but it might be the rain that starts, pattering against the pages of her forgotten book and sinking into the cotton of his shirt. They kiss goodbye.

* * *

He remembers how he left her. It was raining, and the sky was falling down.

_Fin._

**Hope you like. Shall update soon (probably Abby or Ziva).**


	4. Ziva

**OK. Spoilery rant alert: Beep beep beep BEEP.**

**I am SO mad with Gibbs right now. I mean, sure, suuure, it's all part of the healing and I am SO getting sucked into this tension completely unnecessarily, because I KNOW everything is gona be fine, but my GOD did he really have to do meaningful pausing and uncertainty AT THE END, THE VERY END, OF THE EPISODE?! I, for one, think NOT. I think it was just mean...especially considering the preview for next week looks like the best thing I've seen, ever, ever. And obviously she still needs to be 'fixed', and hopefully that's what the crying next week is about, but I swear...there better be fully-fledged Tiva-romance, Ziva re-instatement and just a whole bunch of puppies and kittens and flowers and shizz to make up for ice-cold-Gibbs.**

**On a lighter note, did anyone (aka everyone) notice the little 'oh so subtle' glance between Tony and Ziva when he was saying that co-worker romance is never a good idea? I actually lolled out loud (I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's true) and replayed it like 7 times. Complete adoration for that little snippet. But apart from that...**

**Oh, and I'm also happy that Ziva finally, FINALLY gave her dad the heave-ho and resigned from Mossad. Like, really, really, ridiculously happy. But also...I mean...WHY, GIBBS, WHY? (I know the answer, I just don't like it).**

**OK. I actually think this rant is over (for now). So, new update: Ziva. And it doesn't get any more cheerful than previous chapters. Appears that I can't write 'cheerful' these days (if I ever could) but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. As always, I really, REALLY appreciate reviews. **

**Disclaimer: Ohhhh, if NCIS was mine, The Inside Man would have ended SO differently it's unreal...  
**

**Ziva**

I adored him. With all my heart, I adored him. He was my first lover, and, in some ways, my only. None of the others loved me. None apart from him. Of that I am sure.

His name was Lior, my light. Seventeen years old and I knew so little about the world. I was fresh and savage and furious, and he soothed my blood and stroked my bones and kissed away those tears for my father, and the skinny boy with angry, frightened eyes and a bloody nose for his trouble became, so suddenly, the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I undressed him, slowly, staring in bewilderment at the muscles, the ripples, the faint lines of dark hair that travelled down to places I did not know. He chuckled when I frowned in confusion. I never felt so young.

And, in turn, he undressed me, sweeping those black eyes across my shy skin. They always came back to me, those eyes, rested on mine in a perpetual ache of longing and caution. _Are you alright? Do you want this? I can stop, Ziva, Zivaleh, I will stop if that is what you want._ It was not what I wanted. I had always been a sinner.

The first night, and those sweet, black nights that followed...for a while, for a languid and delicious summer, I thought that was who I could become. A lover. A woman who loved. Maybe even a wife, a mother, a dancer, painter, pianist. I loved him, and he loved me. I was complete, and I could feel it in every breath.

And then along came my father, and the wicked, wicked things he did. The absolute ice of his eyes, and the utter lack of his heart. How he dragged me, sobbing, writhing, away from him, my Lior, my lover, my world, cut my curls with a pair of scissors and slapped my face, called me _sharlila _and_ zonah_ and other words that made me bleed, words a father should never say to his daughter, and then he pulled my chin up and told me that he loved me and that I needed to make him proud. And I, like a child, nodded and believed him. I craved a soft reconciliation. I was a fool.

He would not embrace me, and he did not warn me of what he was going to do.

It was only after my two years in the army - no letters, from anybody - it was only after I returned, sunburnt and deadly, that I found out what he had done. The word _rape_ on a fathers lips, and the silent absence of a daughter, and Lior, angry, frightened, loving Lior...

His broken body was dumped in the dust of a rarely-travelled road. Those black, black eyes stared unseeingly into forever. I was not there for him. I was not there with him. They never even told his mother. She still lights a candle to guide him back home. He is never coming home.

That was when Ziva David began. Not Ziva, Zivi, Zivaleh. The soft, smiling, dimpled child with curly dark hair and smiling dark eyes. Ziva David of the silver tongue and steadfast bullet, Ziva David of the blind obedience and loyalty to the white and blue, Ziva David who could kill her brother and kneel in his blood and pray for him.

Lior was my light, he shone across the floor of littered knives, and now I feel my way through the darkness and wonder when I will trip on a blade.

**Cheery stuff, as usual. But I DO love reviews :)**


	5. Abby

**When I update, it always seems to be at least two times and not just the once. Which is cool (and great for me, because it's 11.09 at night and I'm pretty sure I have some French homework). I think I like this one. I like the idea of Abby being this cute, awkward, dungaree-clad kid who just wandered around all day with a dog and made conversation with strangers. It...fits.**

**Anyway, enough of my rambling. Hope you enjoy, and if you have the time or patience, I really love receiving reviews :)**

**Abby**

An awkward kid in dungarees, skinned knees and a bright red mouth. She used to wander, roam – utterly aimless – through town, watch the cars skim on by and see the bustle of the people. She used to think of ways to make it easier, faster. So fast it was a blur.

She had wide, shining eyes and a clumsy grace. Didn't like pink, didn't like dolls like the other girls. She liked science, the chemistry of things. The way it went.

She dropped an egg. It cracked, spilled over her tatty red trainers. The dog licked it off. She smiled indulgently. Some things never change.

* * *

He was skinny and brown from being in the sun all day, heaving bricks and digging holes. A frayed check shirt and capable arms, and he felt sorry for her traipsing round on her own all day with that _damn dawg_. She seemed savage and wayward somehow, but when you spoke to her she was truly a child. Something in her eyes, her smile, her manner, something in her way of speaking and bouncing and looking at you with the simplest love you ever did see...he knew some things would never change. She was utterly young. And fascinated by watching him.

The first time, she came straight out with it. _Can I try that? That thing with the hammer and that...thing?_ Of course he had to say _no_, that she could hurt herself, that she wasn't trained, that he would if he could, and she looked straight at him and said _aww, that's too bad. When I'm older I'm gonna train to do it like you._ He smirked, the thought of this odd little kid building boxes for a living. He gave her a sip of beer one sunny lunch, and she licked her lips and smiled. Said it wasn't as good as this red stuff she'd had the other day, sticky and sugary and filled with _such a kick you can't sit still for hours, I tell ya_. He chuckled, and went back to work. The other guys were giving him funny looks. There was a crude joke. Everyone pictured it.

She came back a couple of days later, brought a bucket of that red stuff. Made him try it. It jittered him up all day long, and the taste was horrendous, kiddy candy. She loved it, would slouch against a set of jagged railings with that animal of hers, sucking at that straw till it rattled his brains out. _What a beautiful noise_, he would say, and she would smirk happily back at him.

* * *

The house got built, and he went away, and she missed him for a surprising amount of time. All it had been was one empty, lazy summer, one plot of wasteland, one guy, one activity. Stand and watch. Chat, perhaps. Slurp. He tied a red balloon to the railings on the last evening, and she found it on her rounds after dinner. Sliced open her fingers trying to get it off, and finally decided to cut the string and let it sail away into the startling, tender blue of her dusk. She followed the soft, sharp red blot as it flew far from her. She watched it until it was gone, had been gone for hours, and then went home and spent the night drawing a spider web onto the side of her neck. It looked pretty darn good.


	6. AUTHOR'S NOTE

Firstly: THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER.

I'm really sorry if I got your hopes up (although I'm also kinda pleased, because it would suggest that you look forward to updates on my stuff, which would imply that you like it, which would indicate that I am a good writer, which would intimate that I could do this for a living one day. Btw, may I just point out my lovely use of Word Thesaurus just then?).

This is me simply updating you all as to my fascinating personal life. I know I generally tend to update frequently, if not regularly, and often it's every day. However, the last weekend/couple of days I haven't, so much. I really hate just disappearing on you guys, and on the whole community in general, so I am sorry. It might sound stupid but I feel as though I owe you an explanation. There's been a massive family emergency thing going on...while it's not an emergency in the sense of urgency, it's pretty devastating and I haven't really been able to do much other than cry and watch TV for the past couple of days. I don't know how long this will keep up but I WILL be back on here soon. Just wanted to let you all know.

Lots of love,

Bravo.


	7. Another Author's Note

Hey. I know technically you're not supposed to upload any chapters that aren't actually chapters but hey, I do love to break the rules.

Just a quick note to say I'm back. I'll be updating and writing new stuff a lot over the next couple of days. I hope this comes as good news to most of you :)

Thanks for sticking with me and my stuff. Hope I make it worth your while!

Bravo


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